Converia vs. ConfTool
Converia and ConfTool are among the established solutions for organizing scientific conferences. Both support core processes such as participant registration, abstract submission, and reviewing. The main differences lie in the scope of the event coverage and how many organizational tasks remain with the organizer.
Summary
ConfTool focuses heavily on the classic core processes of scientific conferences: submission and review of papers, program planning, and participant registration and billing. The system offers extensive configuration options for these tasks. Converia pursues a broader all-in-one approach: in addition to participant and paper management, its offering includes payment processing, conference websites, check-in and badge printing, as well as solutions for virtual and hybrid events. This allows more conference processes to be organized within a single, cohesive system.
The key differences at a glance
ConfTool is a web-based conference management software specifically designed for academic conferences, meetings, workshops, and congresses. Its primary focus areas include paper submission and reviewing, scientific program planning, and participant registration and invoicing.
For payment processing, ConfTool provides interfaces to payment providers. However, organizers remain the payment recipients themselves. For credit card payments, for example, they require their own acquirer/merchant account or their own account with Stripe or PayPal. ConfTool explicitly states that it does not offer financial services itself and is not involved as an intermediary in the payment process.
For virtual events, ConfTool can link to external resources
Converia covers the entire lifecycle of a scientific conference – from the conference website, abstract submission, reviewing, and participant registration to the on-site event.
A key difference lies in payment processing: organizers choose their preferred payment methods, while Converia handles the payment processing and subsequently disburses the revenue. This eliminates the need for your own credit card contracts.
Furthermore, organizers can create modern conference websites including registration and abstract submission. For virtual and hybrid conferences, a dedicated solution is available with the Virtual Venue.
Converia also supports on-site event operations with barcode-based check-in, optional badge printing, and access control for individual event days or program items.
For scientific institutions, there is also the integration with the DFN-AAI federation: members of participating institutions can use their existing institutional accounts to log in instead of having to manage another password.
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